Frank Barnes's List: SVSU Curriculum and Tools

• In all, just one curriculum series stood out from the pack. Eureka Math, published by Great Minds, a small Washington-based nonprofit organization, was found to be aligned to the Common Core State Standards at all grade levels reviewed.
• Eureka Math far surpassed all other curricula evaluated. It was found to be aligned for all grades, K-8, and passed through all three gateways. On usability, Eureka’s offerings for grades K-5 meet the criteria, while its materials for grades 6-8 only partially meet the criteria.

• My Math, a K-5 instructional series by McGraw-Hill, was deemed fully aligned for grades 4 and 5. The kindergarten text in that series was found not aligned, and the 1st and 2nd grade texts partially meet criteria for alignment.

   

  • Seven Houghton Mifflin Harcourt instructional series were reviewed. Of those, four partially meet the alignment criteria for at least one grade level.

   

  • One of the four Pearson texts reviewed were deemed partially aligned for at least one grade level.

   

  • All texts by Agile Mind, Big Ideas Learning, Edgenuity, Kendall Hunt, and TPS Publishing Inc., were deemed not aligned to the common standards.

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• Of course, I want my students to be able to “determine two or more central ideas of a text” (that’s a standard). But deciding which texts are worth reading is far more interesting. And that’s not a standards question—it’s a curriculum question.
• curriculum has an even greater effect on student outcomes than most popular policy levers, including charter schools, teacher quality, preschool programs, and even standards themselves.
• In short, improving curriculum is almost certainly the last, best, juiciest piece of low-hanging fruit left in our efforts to improve student outcomes.

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